Educational Sciences

Raising standards of teaching and learning in schools, especially those serving socio-economically disadvantaged communities, is a key issue of concern for governments worldwide. The professional capital of school staff is an essential lever for improving student learning, writes Christopher Day, professor of Education, University of Nottingham, in Venue.

Teaching is a complex--rather than a technical or complicated—activity. Unless policy, research and practice designed to improve teacher quality “keep teaching complex,” they are unlikely to lead to changes that genuinely enhance students’ learning and enrich their life chances, writes Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education Lynch School of Education, Boston College.

Elisabeth Dokalik-Jonak and Ronald Kemsies, University of Teacher Education, Vienna, attempt to show how auditory, visual, and linguistic elements support a TPRS lesson in the foreign language classroom. Also, a teaching sequence will be presented putting our ideas and suggestions into practice.

We must talk to each other and develop actions that we can then share and build upon; the process of contagion. Take the five points here to start those conversations and debates, create ideas from them and then share them with everyone you can. If you take action in some small way, share them with my audience. You never know, maybe, just maybe our revolution can begin here, today, write Richard Gerver in Venue, a few months before the next General Election in the UK.

What characterises the preschool environment when it comes to "offering" technology and knowledge within the area? What knowledge of technology is present amongst preschool educators? How do educators discuss technology?

The first time I used pupils to teach other pupils was due to time constraints. I therefore divided the pupils into two groups and gave them two different sections of the textbook to read for homework. I discovered that this was a highly effective learning process for many of the pupils, writes Anna-Lena Göransson.

Associations for adult education provide much more than an opportunity to develop a hobby. They are above all an important tool for integration and can provide quality of life, mobility and security for new immigrants, writes Marlene Karlsson.

That educators within schools should collaborate with each other is nothing new. Collaboration is also strongly emphasised in the Curriculum for nine-year compulsory school, preschool class and after-school recreational centres, 2011 (Lgr 2011). But the issue of collaboration really persists in the same way that it seems reasonable to give thought to who is collaborating and in what way, writes Li Holmström Wirf.

At the preschool department Teddybjörnen, we educators work based on the catchwords: children can, participation and togetherness/interplay. This is achieved both in the daily activities through a station-oriented work approach and also in the different projects we undertake. Our work with stations and projects has resulted in us now having calmer children groups. It has also led to us developing as a working group as a result of our discussions and the support we have given each other, writes Åsa Berglund, Jenny Harman and Jessica Iversen.

About Venue

Through the net journal Venue, we wish to stimulate colleagues working in school, as well as colleagues in educational research at universities and colleges, to participate in a qualified exchange of thoughts and knowledge, by describing experiences and research related to pre-school and school. In Venue you will be able to publish, comment on, and develop different kinds of descriptions of proved experiences as well as scientific studies.